Local residents, particualrly those with disabilities, find it difficult to access buses because of the design of our bus stops.

When they were originally positioned, bus stops  were designed for buses with rear access. But for some years our buses have front access which does not match up with access points at bus stops. This makes it particularly difficult for disabled and infirm travellers to accessing public transport in the Preston area.

Local residents Antionette and Wayne Scivier rely on public transport to get about and are frequent travellers on our local bus routes. But on many occasions they have been unable to board or leave buses at their preferred stop.

Although buses have ramps to allow wheel chair and wheeled mobility walkers these cannot always be used and in most cases there are no dropped kerbs by bus stops which would also assist walking passengers with limited mobility.

A meeting was held in February between the Residents Association, Surrey County Councillor Rebecca Paul and David Ligertwood, the head of Surrey’s Strategic Transport Group. Whilst David was sympathetic to our concerns and promised to consider improvements to the bus stops in our area, nothing has yet happened.

All the bus stops in the area need to be reviewed and updated to meet current needs and situations but two are urgently in need of improvement.

One is the stop at the junction of Merland Rise and Preston Lane towards Tattenham Corner. The red x marks the access point for buses which is impossible to negotiate in a wheel chair. And as is the shown in the photograph below vehicles are often parked close to the bus stop making it difficult for a bus to pull in.

The problem could easily be resolved by moving the bus stop further down the road.

The red lines on this photograph show the current location of the bus stop with the blue line showing where it could be relocated to.

The second stop is nearby, at the junction of Preston Lane and Homefield Gardens towards Tattenham Corner.

As there are no official road markings for this stop, vehicles can park at the stop without penalty allowing insufficient room for a bus to pull up at the stop. This can be resolved by installing road markings.

In general, many of our bus stops have no road markings leading to vehicles parking over them and those with road markings are often old and hardly visible.  Also parking near to a bus stop can mean a bus driver does not notice a wheel chair traveller waiting and does not stop.

We are dissapointed that no action has yet been taken to resolve these issues but Rebecca Paul has promised to chase this up on behalf of local residents. She says “Government policy is intended to encourage the use of public transport and we should be making it easier not harder to use”.

Meanwhile, Antionette and her brother Wayne still struggle to use our local bus service.